The Government deserves credit for a robust response to the report into Victoria Climbié’s death and for producing an outstanding policy document in Every Child Matters. The legislation that followed in the Children Act 2004 places clear duties on each agency. They now know the questions that they ought to be asking in order to promote the health, development and safety of children. We have a sound framework in place. However, what still needs to be done is implementation to ensure good practice is standard practice in every agency.

“What goes wrong in these cases? Usually three things. First, people who set out deliberately to harm children are very skilled at disguising their activities and diverting the attention of staff away from what they have been doing. So professionals have to be more streetwise. That is the nature of the business they are in. They have to be sceptical. Many social workers travel with misguided optimism and hope. They want to believe the best, that people mean well, and are too willing to accept excuses. They fear finding out the worst. That is not the basis of good practice.

“The second is they fail to recognise that the child is their client, that the child’s welfare is paramount. They get diverted on to the adult’s agenda – housing, employment or the inconvenience of getting to appointments. Too often they fail to see the child regularly enough, or observe how he or she behaves towards the adults around. They must be prepared to examine the child.

“All of this means that the people who do this work not only have to cooperate with each other, but they have to be tough-minded, courageous and pretty determined.

“The final point is that staff cannot do this without strong leadership. Frontline staff are often inexperienced and need strong managers asking the right questions, consistently getting involved. Sometimes managers do not fulfil their responsibilities.

“There should be quality standards and fail-safe mechanisms in every organisation. There should be people looking all the time to see that codes are being followed.

“Most companies have this sort of system in place. How much more important to have it in place when it is a matter of life and death for a child.”

Lord Laming was speaking to The Times at the conclusion of the Baby P trial. He chaired the inquiry in 2003 into the death of Victoria Climbié and was asked yesterday to conduct a report into how his reforms have been implemented

Lessons from cruelty

Victoria Climbié, aged 8, died on February 25, 2000, having arrived from Africa a year earlier with her great-aunt, Marie-Therese Kouao. Kouao and her boyfriend, Carl Manning, were jailed for life at the Old Bailey in 2001 for her murder. She had been beaten for months, had 128 injuries and died from malnutrition and hypothermia after being forced to sleep in a bath. At the public inquiry in 2003, led by Lord Laming, it emerged that Victoria could have been saved on 12 separate occasions if the relevant services had intervened. She had been seen by dozens of social workers, nurses, doctors and police officers, but they had failed to spot and stop the abuse to her

The Laming inquiry recommended that teachers, doctors, health visitors and other professionals who come into contact with children must constantly communicate any concerns and share relevant information. Senior social workers must take a far greater involvement in the management of individual cases and not leave key decisions solely to frontline staff

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